At present, the lamps having a cylindrical shade configuration with large diameter with respect to the height thereof enjoy widespread acceptance among the public in meeting centers, shopping centers, catering and other public spaces, where the aesthetic factor plays a role as significant as the efficiency of the lighting.
These types of lamps involve the shade being supported in general by a support structure arranged in the interior space of the cylinder which configures the shade, a structure formed by an upper ring, termed the tripod, provided with a lamp holder washer and a lower ring, arranged in parallel horizontal planes. In some of these lamps, the shades are formed by a plasticized material such as a plasticized fabric or a plasticized paper which joins the upper ring to the lower ring configuring a cylinder. These types of lamps must be sent already assembled, with the shade joined to the rings, which represents a considerable volume. In other cases, the cited rings are joined by vertical rods, together forming a rigid frame. Both the cylindrical shade of plasticized material as well as the rigid frame involve a very voluminous and bulky space at the time of storing and transporting the lamps with the shades and/or frames thereof, since they cannot be stacked, fitting them into each other to take advantage of the storage and shipping space, as is the case when there are various frames or shades for lamps with a truncated conic configuration which, generally, are transported in boxes which contain a certain number of shades fitted into each other.
There are solutions in which the frames are formed of articulated rods which adopt a folded position for the transport thereof, although these are complicated and costly to manufacture.
Another recent alternative consists of support structures composed of two independent metallic rings, with circular contour, to which the shade is joined by way of hooking means provided on the same. In these cases, the body of the shade can be folded when made of a suitable material or is rigid in one direction, particularly in the vertical direction and flexible in the horizontal direction such that the body of the shade can be folded in one direction, occupying less space, as is described in the patent documents US20050117354-A1 and US20080130297-A1 respectively. These solutions represent an improvement in terms of space saving, ease of transport thereof and the consequent saving of transport costs. However, these shade and support structure systems involve a laborious manufacturing process, since the hooking means have to be inserted, configured in the form of a hook between the layers which form the shade as is the case in the document US20080130297-A1, in addition to having to observe that, when the shade is folded, the hooks do not damage the interior surface of the other side of the shade which is opposed when it is folded. In the document US20050117354-A1, the hooking means are formed by strips which are provided on the rings and by other strips which are provided on the interior surface of the shade, adapted to be joined together, the section of the ring being surrounded by the strips joined to one and the other part. The process of joining strips to the shade and others to the ring as well as the process of hooking the rings to the shade is laborious since each pair of strips has to be hook one by one and ensuring that the rings are perfectly horizontal is time-consuming. Another drawback is that with the assembly and disassembly of the lamp, the strips can lose the mutual joining capacity thereof without being able to reliably ensure that the ring is secured the whole time required to have the lamp assembled, or even if by accident some person pulls the shade downwards, the strips could be unhooked.
Thus it is revealed the need to provide a shade, which occupies a reduced space during the storage and transport thereof, which can be transported in an individual box with reduced dimensions which is easy to assemble and disassemble and which ensures at all times the stability of the coupling between the shade and the support structure thereof.